The Purple Martin

Audubon paints his purple martins not on a wild branch but at a hollowed gourd hung as a birdhouse — a practice Native American communities originated centuries before European colonization, hanging gourds near their fields because martins aggressively drive off crows and other crop-raiding birds, and one colonial settlers adopted wholesale. By Audubon's era the gourd-martin-house was already a fixture of Southern farmyards, making this one of the few Birds of America plates to picture a bird in explicitly human-built, human-negotiated habitat rather than pure wilderness. What to notice: three martins in three different plumages — a glossy blue-black adult male, a duller female, and a young bird still finding its markings — turn the plate into a small field guide to sexing and aging a single species, tucked inside what still reads as an intimate backyard scene.

Maker

John James Audubon (engraved by Robert Havell Jr.)

Date

1827

Medium of the original

Engraving

Original held by

Wikimedia Commons

Credit

Wikimedia Commons

Rights

Public domain, verified

Catalogue number

PA-00282